19 December 2005

When chocolate is tempered (a series of temperature drops to encourage the forming of a specific crystal which allows the chocolate to harden), you can do just about anything --- this accetate strip was rubbed into a stream of tempered chocolate, until evenly coated. The coated side is then turned inward, then taped to form a column. These column are then set aside to harden. Once hardened the accetate strip is removed.

It has been awhile, I know. I am organizing my non-cyber life at the moment.

You might be wondering what have I been up to?? Well as my first quarter of Professional Bakery/Pastry Management I had to manage 2 stations (each for 5 weeks). My first station was Cakes & French Pastries. As described in a previous post.

The 2nd station I managed was CTO, I was acting pastry chef for the banquet hall in the Culinary Student's kitchen. I had a culinary student partner, and we were in charge of baking, finishing and plating the deserts for customers. We also had to make rolls/bread for 100+ servings.

We had total control on which deserts we could create. There wasn't however a wrack to set our pre plated deserts -- which limited the amount of production we could plan.

The typical count for people dining during the 11:15 a.m to 1 p.m lunch, was 110 people. Now not everyone would order desert, but if a 15 person table ordered desert at once, you really needed to be on the ball.

Some of the desert items we made included fresh fruit napoleons, which I will be detailing in my next post.

As for school I have taken my finals and now I am on winter holiday. I will be taking Winter quarter off.